Caper-Sauce: A Volume of Chit-Chat about Men, Women, and Things.

But, ah! the ecstatic bliss of walking with one who thinks with you, as he moves dreamily on without speech – to be free to utter or to be silent, and no offence given or taken. To be allowed to wander leagues off, without fear of being rudely jerked back to time, at any unpropitious moment.

To turn this corner and that, by some mutual magnetic understanding, that you smile at afterward, when you come to think of it, as strangely funny and agreeable. To reach your own door-step as rested and refreshed, and with as cool and tranquil a brow, as if your own mother had sung you to sleep with the old-time nursery lullaby. To go back with fresh heart and spirit, to take up your burden of duty where weary nature had lain it hopelessly down. That's my kind of "walk."

There are certain persons whom to meet is like opening the window of a close apartment on a delicious June day. The first breath is an inspiration. You throw back your locks from your heated forehead, and your weary eyes, and ask nothing but to sit down and let this soother minister to you. All your cares, and frets, one by one creep away, and a new life and vigor seem infused into every nerve and muscle. You are not the same creature that you were ten minutes before. You are ready after all to do valiant battle with life, though you had supposed yourself quite surrendered to its everyday, petty, and harassing tyrant necessities. Exuberant animal strength must needs carry with it hopefulness and courage; and they whose nerves have been strained and weakened by past trouble, welcome the breezy, fresh influence of such, like Heaven's own dew and sunshine. It is a tonic, the blessing of which the unconscious giver knows not how to appreciate perhaps, but oh how invaluable to the receiver! A soulful face, an exultant word – a light, springing step! We raise our weary eyes first in wonder, then in admiration; and the sympathetic chord thus struck – the brow clears, the eyes brighten, and life seems – not the curse we morbidly thought it – but the blessing God intended it.

MEN TEACHERS IN GIRLS' SCHOOLS

I am inclined to think, with all due deference to the powers that be, that male teachers are not best for young girls. It takes a woman, who understands all the witcheries of the sex, and off whom they glance harmless, like water off a turtle's back, to deal with these young kittens; they have more fun than geography can absorb, and are not to be feruled like a great cub of a boy, whose whole future life will be license after jacketdom, as decreed by society and the laws; while a severe woman-discipline surely awaits the most frolicsome girl, beginning from the moment when she first learns what her heart is made of, till death stills its yearnings.

And yet I pity a male teacher of girls, whose studied dignity is in a second dethroned by a single pantomimic gesture of some bright-eyed young flirt, who feels her power without yet being old enough to understand it, and with an instinctive coquetry gets on his blind side, turning all his foreordained frowns into ill-suppressed smiles. How can he box those little round ears? How can he disfigure those soft, white palms? How can he – sending all the other pupils home – trust himself, after school, alone with those bright eyes, to put them through a subduing tear process? Ten to one the "subduing" is on the other side!

Said I to a little girl, not many mornings since, who was getting ready for school, "Why do you put on that bright new dress to go, when your old brown one would do as well?" "Oh," was her reply, "I haven't got my lesson to-day, and of course I must look pretty." There's fourteen-year-old female knowledge of human nature for you! Imagine a boy putting on his best jacket for such a purpose.

There must be discipline, that's certain; but, in my opinion, a man's head must be gray, not brown or black, if he would enforce it; his blood must be cold and sluggish, and his ear deaf to the charmer, charm she never so cunningly, or, certes, his magisterial chair will be set at naught. Don't I know! Answer me, thou now "Reverend" gentleman, who once kept me after school for a reprimand, and spent the precious moments rolling my curls over your fingers, while my comrade was bursting off her hooks and eyes as she peeped through the key-hole. Not that I uphold it, but every animal naturally fights with the weapons a good Providence has given it – and somehow or other I had found that out; though whether France was bounded south by Rhode Island or not was still a mystery that I was not in a hurry to solve.

Still, for all that, I pity a male teacher who is set to the impossible task of making girls "behave." I should pity them more, did I not know that they keep them in school about four or five hours longer than they ought. Did I not know what they know, but will persist practically in ignoring, that the fun has got to come out somehow, or turn to poison in the blood, and that if teachers won't give it whizzing time out of school, they must needs have it fly in their faces in school. I should pity them more, did I not, every day, see their pupils staggering home under a pile of stupidly written school-books, fit only to kindle the kitchen fire – thank goodness their little beaux sometimes save their arms from dislocation, by gallantly carrying them home for them. Do I approve of boy-beaux? Why not? Don't every rosebud draw its humming-bird? Did not God make them both for this harmless, innocent delight? You had your boy-beaux, madam; I had mine, by the score. Only teach your daughter to love you well enough to conceal nothing, however minute, from you; only show her that you have a heart, and don't want her to pluck out her's, and my word for it, no harm will come of her "boy-beaux." It is your repression that does the mischief – your ignoring your own youth and hers. The child who has leave to pluck the apple often leaves it untouched, undesired, on the tree.

Meantime our male teacher stands there, with his hands in his pockets, waiting to see what is to be done with him. Well, his pockets are the best place for his hands when he is keeping a girls' school; and with this advice I leave him, until he is sixty or so, when, if he chooses to open a girls' school, I promise him at least, that he will not go to sleep during the services.

Now let no conservative accuse me of upholding school rebellion. It is because I do not do this that I express my preference for women teachers, both principals and assistants, for girls; having an understanding of, and impervious to, girl witcheries, whom the little rogues know, having been girls themselves, can see through them, and for whom pretty looks or dresses will never answer instead of well-digested lessons.

A Safe Amusement. – All children are fond of animal pets, but it is so difficult to manage such pets in a city that no family can indulge its children's tastes in that respect to any great extent. No one can have watched the children in the Central Park, as they gaze at and linger over the bears and tigers and strange birds, without wishing that the little zoologists had a wider field and better opportunities for pursuing the study of natural history. There ought to be a permanent collection of animals and birds in New York, in some good situation, where children and young people could have ample opportunity, under proper restrictions, to indulge their natural taste for natural history. Every hour thus employed would be a safeguard against the myriad temptations to vice and idleness which pervade the city.

MY CALL ON "DEXTER."

The other evening I went up to Fifty-sixth street to see the new stable. Mr. Bonner was out, but his horses were not. Now I didn't go to see them do their 2.40's, but to gaze at them artistically; and, of course, I wanted them to stand long enough for me to do it, which I believe is not their normal condition. I had a fancy, too, for inspecting them through the bars of their respective doors; for, you see, my nerves had been thrown a little out of gear by a huge blood-hound, that made for me as I was entering the stable-yard, but who, in consideration of my being a Ledger contributor, let me off easy in my boots.

Well, the first thing that struck my New England bred eyes was the perfect neatness and polish and beauty, of every inch of floor and ceiling in that stable. A place for everything, and everything in its place, and Mrs. Bonner nothing to do with it either! Shining harness, shining vehicles, big wheels and small seats, and nothing to hold on to – but the natty reins; a perfectly awful reflection to me, but then Mr. Bonner's arm is an arm! On the wall was something the size of a full moon; red, with a fanciful oak frame. It looked like a huge pincushion, and sure enough it was. Stuck full of wooden pins, to fasten the blankets of those horses round their wicked, strong necks. If it hadn't been for that blood-hound, which I heard sniffing round after me from the outside, I should have inspected it more carefully; but it was fastened to the wall near the door, and – well, I thought I'd pass on to see Dexter. My dear! your new seal-skin sack isn't softer, browner, nor more lovely than that creature's skin. And as to his tail, your latest "switch" is nothing to it! Mr. Bonner not being present to Rarey-fy him, he kicked out his hind leg at me in a very suggestive manner; so, with an Oh, gracious! I requested to have his door closed, for there was a glitter in his eye which was not at all Scriptural. Besides, I once flew through Harlem Lane behind him, and didn't get the color back into my lips for a week after. To compose myself I passed on to Lantern, the Grandpa of the stable, though I have known Grandparents rather frisky in my day. He was reposing on his laurels, and turned round his head to me as if to ask, Why don't you? Alas! I have yet to earn them, and unlike him, I have to pin on my own blanket, and comb my own hair, and buy my own shoes; that's why I don't, old Lantern.

Then I went to see Startle, as if I needed startling any more, when I had been muttering paternosters ever since I saw that horrid blood-hound. Well, Startle is a beauty, and he knew it too. Just like a piece of satin, with his tail sweeping the floor. After I had looked at the whole ten, I said to myself, if ever a man earned the right to all these beautiful creatures, Robert Bonner has, from the time he first began to set types in a printing office, down, or rather up, to the present day. Every proud moment that he enjoys them, in or out of that handsome stable, he is fairly entitled to; and he is entitled to that blood-hound, and I wouldn't rob him of that for the wide world!

Ladies "Without an Object." – Ladies often give as a reason why they do not take exercise, "Oh, I don't like to go out without an object." Now nothing could prove more clearly their deplorable physical condition than this remark; since, to a well-organized frame, motion and fresh air are positive daily necessities; irrespective of any "object," save the cool play of the wind on the temples, and the healthful glow which follows a brisk walk. Medicine is a joke to it. No doctor, be his diploma ever so pretentious, could effect with simple means a more magical result. Considered only as "a beautifier," we marvel that the female portion of the community neglect it. A little chilliness in the air? A little sprinkling of rain? A high wind? An inability to display a fine dress? What puerile reasons for growing sallow, irritable, and sick.

THE POETRY OF WORK

Executive people have generally the reputation, from their opposites, of being ill-tempered people. Self-trained to the observance of the admirable old maxim, that "whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well," they are naturally disgusted with dawdling inefficiency and sloth in any shape. Chary of the precious flying moments, the most intolerable of vexations to them is to have their time trespassed upon, and wasted, in a million petty and unnecessary ways, by the stupidity or culpable thoughtlessness of those about them. Now what is called "an easy person," i. e., a person who is not self-contained, on whose hands time hangs heavily, cannot be made to understand why a person of an opposite description need make a fuss about a few minutes. Why, "what is a few minutes?" they ask. Much, much in the course of a lifetime to those who carefully husband them. Those "few minutes" may make all the difference between an educated and an uneducated person; between a man independent in his circumstances, and a man always under the grinding heel of want; all the difference between intelligence, thrift, and system on one hand, and ignorance, discomfort, and disaster on the other. Those "few minutes," carefully improved as they occur, have filled libraries with profound and choice volumes; those "few minutes," saved for mental cultivation, have enabled men, and women too, to shed over a life of toil a brightness which made even monotonous duty a delight. Such can ill afford to be robbed of them by those unable to appreciate their value. Like the infinitesimal gold scrapings of the mint, they may not be purloined, or carelessly brushed away by idle fingers; but conscientiously gathered up and accounted for; to be molten and stamped with thought, then distributed to bless mankind.

What a pleasure it is to see anything perfectly done. I never go "shopping" that I do not look on with admiration while the storekeeper so deftly does up my parcels. I believe no woman who has not acquired the professional shopkeeping touch, can do this decently. I like, too, to watch a group of men painting a house, provided the platform upon which they stand is so strong that my blood does not curdle lest their merry song should never be finished. With what a dexterous, careful, delicate touch they brighten up the unsightly wall; there is fascination to the looker-on in their skilful progress. Carpentering, too, I like; what pretty, silky, curled shavings they plane off; how many times, when a child, I placed them on my head for ringlets, have I mentally resolved to be a carpenter's wife, that I might always have plenty. How sure the stroke of their hammer upon the nail which a woman would bend, or break in pieces, beside jamming her fingers to a jelly. Mark the sturdy porter, too, as he tosses a huge "Saratoga trunk" lightly as a feather upon his back, and poising it, marches up uncounted stairs without tripping or bumping.

I like to see a strong man holding a fiery horse by a slight rein and a strong will. I like to see the oarsman in his red-shirt sleeves, pulling away over the sparkling water; I like to see the rough, red-faced omnibus driver making change, halting, gesticulating, hallooing to passers-by, all in the same breath. I like anything that is wide-awake and efficient, and if it be beautiful at the same time, so much the better. I like to see the cook toss eggs into a foam so nicely, with head turned the other way, watching pots, skillets, and frying-pans, and at the same time giving orders to half a dozen subordinates. I like to see a milliner twist a ribbon into a thousand fanciful shapes while talking, or selecting a rose from one box, a green spray from another, then a spear of wheat, a daisy and a poppy, twine them together with an artist's taste and touch. I like to see the dressmaker fit the glossy silk to the curve of limbs as soft as the silky fabric. I like to see the flushed pressman sliding the damp newspapers from the "form" without a flaw or a wrinkle. I like to see a mother strip her little, tender babe, and bathe its fragile limbs with that wonderful delicacy of touch which mothers only know, singing, caressing, patting, and soothing, till the lovely task is done. I like to see those little imps of newsboys running indiscriminately between the legs of man and beast, yelling out their precocious wisdom about "accidents and arrivals;" dodging under carts, and coming out safe in wind and limb; thriving, in spite of dirt and rags, to turn up some day, ten to one, in a big marble store up town, as bookseller or publisher.

I am not at all sure, now that blessed chloroform is discovered by which my faith in the predicted millennium has had a most vigorous quickening (why don't they build a statue to the discoverer?) that I could not look on admiringly while the surgeon's knife wound amid veins and arteries with almost omnipotent skill, his patient lying calm as a sleeping infant the while.

And now the thought comes over me with overwhelming force, how strange that we, who so adore strength, power, beauty, and perfection, should be content with its circumscribed human progress; never look for it, never worship it, where it is limitless, unchangeable, unfettered by selfishness, caprice, or injustice. Alas! till we learn this, we shall, vine-like, throw out our tendrils to the mercy of every passing breeze, with nothing sure to twine around or cling to.

CAN'T KEEP A HOTEL

A man who has no call to keep a hotel had better not try it, unless he can be certain that the horizon of his guests has always been bounded by the village hay-scales. Noble scenery is a fine thing; but mountain, nor lake, nor river, was ever enjoyable in company with an empty stomach, or one which is in the talons of the fiend, indigestion. To come to one's meal with loathing, and eat because we must, or starve, and then hurry from grease and saleratus as soon as possible, is not the best receipt a landlord can use to insure a good class of customers for another season. He may think it of no consequence that his garden, if he have one, be as full of nettles as of flowers; that the walks have more pig-weed than gravel in them; that his out-buildings are more conspicuous than any other object both to the eye and nose; and that the grass-plats about the house are strewn with perpetual rags, paper, and old boots, which a fervid August sun is not generally inclined to mitigate.

He may "take things easy" when his guests, having engaged the hotel-carriage and horses for a ride are still standing on the piazza waiting half an hour past the time; and when, on its dilatory appearance, the harness is found giving out at the last minute, having been patched and repatched in a slovenly manner on uncounted previous rides; while the golden sunset, on which his guests had reckoned, is spent in a fruitless search for that hammer and those nails, which elude all pursuit. He may think it good policy to keep his regular boarders waiting for their meals an hour past the appointed time, while hungry children fret for sustenance, because new-comers will then appear, and this stratagem will save the trouble of preparing two meals. He may do all that if he will; but he must remember that every disgusted guest who leaves his establishment will prevent many from coming to it; and that with such a short-sighted policy he will soon find "his occupation gone."

Keeping a hotel is a gift, as much as poetry, or sculpture, or painting. I might name men whose hotels have attained perfection under their wise, cleanly, and systematic ordering; but perfect as they are, I, for one, am not employed to advertise them over the length and breadth of the land in the New York Ledger. Suffice it to say, that I have slept on their lovely beds, and had four towels a day to wash my hands on. That I had a roomy wardrobe for such of my clothes as I desired to set free from my trunk. That the looking glass was not located in the darkest corner of the room, or placed so high that I had to stand on tip-toe, or so low that I had to get on my knees to myself. That the coffee was not made of split peas. That the fried potatoes even an angel like me might eat. That the meats were cooked in a Christian manner, and the bread guiltless of any abominable "Sal" – anything. That the pastry, which I never touch, looked good for those who like it; and that the ale – oh! the ale was "divine." That in the spots where cleanliness might not be looked for, there it reigned. That no chambermaid came with scraping broom against my door, at daylight, to rouse me from my slumbers, and shuffle and flirt with the boot-and-shoe collectors at the different doors. That no "pictures" of ambitious artists upon the walls gave me the nightmare. And, oh! more – far more than this, that the well-mannered landlord never made a menagerie – show – of any "lion," or lioness, in his house, by labelling the same, on the instant of their appearance, in dining-hall or parlor, for the unwinking stare of the curious.

Of course, such a house needs money as well as an artist-master to carry it on. Of course, guests who register their names there, must foot the cost of all this outlay on their bills.

One can buy a bonnet at a pawn-shop, if one is satisfied only with cheapness; but the dainty, artistic fingers, which blend colors and fabrics with the lightness and brightness of inspiration, cannot be expected to sell so much talent at a pawnbroker's price.

Your physician, who stays in your house only five minutes, charges you, perhaps, fifteen dollars. You stare wildly at the amount; but you do not take into account the human bodies he has overhauled, and the libraries and lectures he has mastered to arrive at the knowledge which he has concentrated for your benefit in that brief five minutes. In homely phrase, "you pays your money and you takes your choice." Or, "he is a good-natured man, but he can't keep a hotel," nor will people stay with him long, though Paradise lies out-doors.

Women Lovers. – Perhaps you don't know it, but there are women that fall in love with each other. Woe be to the unfortunate she who does the courting! All the cussedness of ingenuity peculiar to the sex is employed by "the other party" in tormenting her. She will flirt with women by the score who are brighter and handsomer than her victim. She will call on them oftener. She will praise their best bonnet, and go into ecstasies over their dresses. She will write them more pink notes, and wear their "tin types;" and when despair has culminated, and sore-hearted Araminta takes to her bed in consequence, then only will this conquering she, step off her pedestal to pick up her dead and wounded. But then women must keep their hand in. Practice makes perfect.

NEW CLOTHES

It is curious with what different eyes human beings look upon new clothes, at different stages of existence. Youth, which least needs these auxiliaries, is generally the most clamorous for incessant change. No discomfort in the way of perpetual guardianship over their freshness; no uncomfortable sense of their weight or pressure on the limbs, is heeded, so that the craving for them is satisfied. Nor is there any sex to this foible. Young men are quite as apt to be caught tripping in this regard as their sisters. The new coat may squeeze; the new collar may strangle; the new boots may pinch; the new hat may leave its red mark on the throbbing forehead, but perish the thought of not wearing either! The self-immolation which is undergone in this way finds no mention in "Fox's Book of Martyrs;" but its silent, tearless, uncomplaining heroism exists none the less for all that. From the days when our foremothers had their heads built up in turrets by the hurried hair-dresser, the night previous to some great festive occasion, and sat bolstered upright in bed all night, for fear of tumbling them – down to the present day of ladies' "hair-crimpers," human nature has held its own in this respect.

Middle age, with few exceptions, looks upon new clothes with abated interest. Old clothes, like old customs, fit easy. Comfort, anyhow, says middle age – appearances as the gods please; so new shoes lie on the shelf unworn for weeks, for fear of stiff heels or squeaky soles; and new clothes look and feel so spick-and-span and glossy, that middle age can no more say or do a natural thing in them, than the boy could spell right "before he had got the hang of the new school-house;" middle age resents this petty, fretting intrusion on its much-loved quiet. It is irritable, till new clothes begin to feel easy, which is not generally the case till some seam grows threadbare, or some treacherous gap horrifies the easy wearer with renewed visions of innovating fashions and fabrics.